Challenges Facing Small And Medium Enterprises

How are SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) adapting to survive and flourish in this new world? What kind of challenges do they face, whether cash flow management or business financing? This article highlights challenges facing SMEs in obtaining sufficient finance in today's markets and how to overcome those challenges.

Small businessesstill suffer a number of constraints such as lack of capital and entrepreneurial skills.The main financial challenge facing them is access to finance over a reasonable period. This is determined by their financing needs and the action of investors. Financing needs reflect their operational requirements, while the action of investors depends on their risk perception and the attractiveness of alternative investment.

In today's uncertain economy with ever rising interest rates, many small businesses with limited financial fund are having problems staying alive. It is noted that 63% of new businesses do not survive six years and most work-at-home people fail within six months.

Every business must have cash in order to survive and operate. The financial difficult sometimes is due to bad cash management. Most small and medium business neglect their cash flow until it is too late to recover.

It is suggested that to manage cash flow effectively small businesses have to make sure they get the money from customers sooner, pay bills at the last possible moment, manage accounts payable, accounts receivable and inventory more effectively.

In order that small businesses set up and expand their operations, develop new products, and invest in new staff or production facilities funding for these becomes really crucial. Business experience shows that many small businesses when they are successful and need new investment to expand or innovate further, they heavily fail, because they find it much harder to obtain adequate financing from banks, capital markets or other suppliers of credit.

The difficulties that small businesses encounter when trying to access financing can be due to an incomplete range of financial products and services, regulatory rigidities or gaps in the legal framework, lack of information on both the bank's and the business's side. Banks may avoid providing financing to certain types of business, in particular, start ups and very young firms that typically lack sufficient collateral.

Banks and other traditional sources of credit may decide that small businesses represent a greater risk than larger companies, and respond by charging higher interest rates. This makes it more difficult for them to borrow than for bigger companies, and may make it effectively impossible for many of them to borrow money at all because the price of credit is too high.

To conclude, the high cost of credit, high bank charges and fees is the main reasons encountered by SMEs in accessing finance. The rationale behind turning to these schemes among a good number of entrepreneurs is mainly to seek alternatives and soft credit with low interest rates while making profits. Governments can play an important role in supporting the SME sector, particularly where there is market failure.